Photo: James Duncan Davidson

“North Korea is often in the news, conjuring images of missiles, weapons, dictatorships and sometimes eccentric habits,” says Adrian Hong, TED Fellow and guest curator of Session 9, Forces of Change at TEDGlobal 2013. “But underneath all that bluster is a country racked by starvation, by oppression, by fear, by concentration camps. In many ways, it represents a stain on the soul of humanity that it exists this way in 2013.” With these words, he introduces us to Joseph Kim, who at the age of 16 escaped starvation in North Korea to find hope and a new chance at life in the United States.

In his quietly powerful first-person account, Joseph tells us about a family — a father, mother and older sister — constantly struggling against poverty. In the Great Famine of 1994, the 4-year-old Joseph and his sister would look for firewood from 5am until midnight. More than 1 million North Koreans died of starvation during that time. No one thought about politics and freedom, he says. “Hunger is humiliation. Hunger is hopelessness.”

In 2003, when Kim was 13, he watched his father starve to death. That same year, his mother disappeared, and his sister left for China, promising to come back soon with money and food. As they had never before been parted, Joseph didn’t hug her goodbye — “It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Suddenly, Joseph was an orphan, left to survive on his own by begging, scavenging and taking occasional work in the coal mines, 33 meters underground with no protection, up to 16 hours a day. “When I could not fall asleep from bitter cold or hunger pains, I hoped the next morning my sister would come back to wake me up with food. That hope kept me alive.” After three years, understanding he could no longer survive this way, he decided to go to China to look for her himself.

In February 2006, Kim made the risky crossing during the day because he was afraid of the dark, knowing that if the North Korean border control caught him he would be shot, and if the Chinese authorities caught him he’d be sent back to face severe punishment. Once in China, he was continuously anxious about being captured, but luckily found help in an underground shelter run for North Koreans. Later that year, an activist helped him escape to the US as a refugee.

Kim was adopted by a foster family and sent to high school — something that seemed “ridiculous” to Kim, who’d never even been to middle school. One day, at dinner, Kim wanted an extra chicken wing, and seeing there was not enough for everyone to have seconds, didn’t take it. He looked down and saw it on his plate — his foster father had given him the last wing. “It made me think of my biological father, who sacrificed everything for me even if he was hungry. I felt suffocated that I had so much food in America. My only wish that night was to cook a meal for my father. I thought about what else I could do to honor him, and decided to take school seriously for the first time in my life.” Kim made the Dean’s list in his first semester of high school.

“That chicken wing changed my life,” says Kim. “Hope is personal. Hope is something that no one can give to you. You have to choose to believe in it. You have to make it yourself.” He asks his audience for help, saying, “My foster father didn’t intend to change my life — and in the same way you may also change someone else’s life with the smallest act of love. I confidently believe that your act of love and caring can also save another Joseph’s life, and thousands of others who are hoping to survive.”

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

At the end of Kim’s talk, Hong asked whether, on the off chance that his sister might see this talk online, he would like to send her a message. Here’s what he said:

“It has been already ten years that I haven’t seen you. I just wanted to say that I miss you and I love you, and I know you promised me that you would come back with food and money soon, but although it would be great to have food from you, please don’t worry about that. I’m so sorry. It’s okay if you can’t make money or bring food, but please come back to me and stay alive. I still haven’t given up my hope to see you. I will live my life happily and study hard until I see you, and I promise I will not cry again. I’m just looking forward to seeing you, and please come back. If you can find me, I will also look for you and I hope to see you one day.

He also sent a message to his mother: “I know I haven’t spent much time with you, but I know you love me and probably think about me and pray for me. I just want to say thank you for letting me be in this world. Thank you.”

TED speaker Hyeonseo Lee (right) meets Dick Stolp (left), the kind stranger who gave her a wad of cash to help get her family out of jail four years ago. Photo: SBS

A total stranger helped Hyeonseo Lee pay her mother and brother’s way out of jail as they fled from North Korea. Now, four years later, Lee has been reunited with that stranger, getting the chance to thank him in person.

Hyeonseo Lee: My escape from North KoreaIn Lee’s TED2013 talk, “My escape from North Korea,” she describes defecting from North Korea in the late ’90s and how, after nearly ten years of living in hiding, she returned to help her family make their own escape. When her mother and brother were captured in Vientiane, Laos, and jailed for illegal border crossing, Lee describes how, out of money and desperate for a solution, she was approached by a foreigner. After hearing Lee’s story, this stranger withdrew a large sum of cash — £645 to be exact — from an ATM. With the money to use as a bribe, Lee’s family was able to escape.

When Lee asked the stranger why he was helping her, he replied, “I’m not helping you. I’m helping the North Korean people.” As Lee says in an emotional moment in her talk, “The kind stranger symbolized new hope for me and the North Korean people when we needed it most.”

Earlier this month Lee was invited to be a guest on the Australian broadcast show Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), where she had an unexpected visitor: Dick Stolp, the Australian backpacker who had helped her in Laos. Lee didn’t have any of his contact information – but Stolp had seen her TED Talk and SBS, catching wind of the story, orchestrated the surprise reunion.

“I was really happy … I can’t explain with words, but it was really amazing,” Hyeonseo told Sky News after the reunion. “He says, ‘I’m not a hero,’ but I say he is a modern hero.”

Stolp, for his part, was excited to see the girl he had helped years ago. “You help a small hand and it reaches to other hands and you think, ‘That’s great, that’s good stuff,’” he said. “I’m meeting someone who is now doing good things, and inside I can’t help but feel ‘Hey! I helped this lady to go out and change her life.’”

Read more about Lee and Stolp’s meeting, or watch the SBS special on North Korea in full »

Hyeonseo Lee talks about life growing up in North Korea at TED2013. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

North Korea is one of the most isolated countries in the world. So it’s exceptionally rare to hear a first-hand account of life there — in English, no less.

Hyeonseo Lee: My escape from North KoreaIn today’s brave talk, given at TED2013, Hyenseo Lee gives a riveting account of what it was like to grow up in North Korea. “I thought my country was the best on the planet,” she says. “I was very proud … I often wondered about the outside world, but I thought I would spend my life in North Korea — until everything changed.”

Lee tells of seeing her first public execution at age 7, and witnessing the death and desperation around her during the terrible famine of the 1990s. She doesn’t actually remember much about her escape — only that, at age 14, she was sent to stay with distant relatives in China. She ended up living there on her own and wouldn’t see her parents again for another 14 years.

It’s easy to think that, once the border is crossed, the worst is behind a North Korean refugee. But Lee tells her story to stress the point that the struggle continues long after. In China, Lee lived under the constant threat of discovery — which would end with her being deported to face execution, torture or imprisonment. Even after seeking asylum in South Korea in 2008, Lee says life was still hard as she faced a deep depression adjusting to a new life all over again. And then she discovered that her family was being targeted after money she sent home was intercepted.

To hear this powerful story, watch the talk. And here, see more stories of escapes from incredible circumstances.

Theresa Flores: Find a voice with soap
As a teenage girl in the Michigan suburbs, Theresa Flores found herself manipulated into a human trafficking ring. Now, she tries to help girls in this situation. At TEDxColumbus she shares an idea — how wrappers on bars of soap in motels could give women the resources they need to find help.

Photos: James Duncan Davidson

Hyeonseo Lee saw her first public execution at age 7. A child growing up in North Korea, the moment affected her, but she didn’t have the frame of reference to understand the government repression going on around her.

“When I was little, I thought my country was the best on the planet,” she says in Session 10 of TED2012. “I was very proud … I often wondered about the outside world, but I thought I would spend my life in North Korea.”

In the 1990s, a famine struck North Korea, killing an estimated million people. And while Lee’s family was able to eat, in 1995, her mom brought home a girl. With the girl was a letter that read, “When you read this, our family members will not exist in this world because we have not eaten.”

“I was so shocked,” says Lee. “This was the first time that I heard people in my country were suffering.”

She began to hear of people surviving by eating grass and tree bark. While she lived only across a river from the Chinese border — close enough to see their lights, and wonder why her side was so dark — the bodies floating in the river of drowned escapees was enough to deter escape.

Lee can’t share a lot of details of how she left North Korea — she can only say that at some point, she was sent to stay with distant relatives. She thought she’d see her immediate family again soon. That wouldn’t happen for another 14 years.

Lee lived in China, essentially on her own, posing as if she were Chinese so that she wouldn’t be sent back to North Korea.

“One day, my worst nightmare came true,” says Lee. She was caught by the Chinese police. Someone had accused her of being North Korean, and she was subjected to brutal tests of her ability to speak Chinese. “I was so scared, I thought my heart would explode.”

Luckily, she passed the test and felt a surge of relief when the officers said: “She isn’t North Korean.”

“Every year, countless North Koreans are caught in China, sent back, tortured, imprisoned, publicly executed … It was a miracle,” says Lee. “It’s tragic that North Koreans have to hide their identity just to survive. Even after getting out, their whole world can be turned upside down.”

Ten years later, Lee started life over again in South Korea, learning a new culture and going to university. But soon, she received another panic in the form of a telephone call. North Korean officials had intercepted money sent to her family. She needed to help them escape, and quick.

On the stage, Lee narrates the incredible journey to get her family out. When they were caught by Chinese police, Lee managed to convince them that her family was “these deaf and dumb people that I am shepherding.” It worked, and Lee’s family made it through China and into southeast Asia. But then they were arrested for border crossing.

“This was one of the lowest points in my life,” says Lee. “I did everything to help my family to get to freedom and we came so close. But they were thrown in jail just a short distance from the South Korean embassy.”

It was the kindess of a stranger that saved them. A random man asked Lee what was wrong. He took her to an ATM and gave her money to pay her family’s way out of jail. When she asked him why, he said: “I’m not helping you, I’m helping North Korean people.”

Lee’s story is powerful and a good reminder that getting to freedom is only half the battle.

Hyeonseo Lee’s TED Talk has been posted. Watch it here»

Let’s find the strength to change our slums: Boniface Mwangi at TEDxKibera
While working as a photographer for a Kenyan news service, Boniface Mwangi bore witness to some of the most horrible atrocities in the country’s recent history. Overcoming self-doubt and thoughts of suicide, Mwangi decided to use photography to inspire change within Kenya’s toxic political structure. (Filmed at TEDxKibera)

Born into a prison camp: Blaine Harden at TEDxRanier
Shin Dong-Hyuk, raised by guards to be an informant in a North Korean prison camp, escaped and found freedom in the outside world, but soon realized living with freedom wasn’t easy. At TEDxRainier, Blaine Harden shares Shin’s story to explain the effect of totalitarian governments on their citizens’ mental health, and to raise awareness that — someday — integrating millions of North Koreans into free society might not be as easy as we think. (Filmed at TEDxRainier)

The first school for Maasai girls: Kakenya Ntaiya at TEDxMidAtlantic
Growing up in the Maasai culture, Kakenya Ntaiya faced genital mutilation and forced marriage; her education might have ended at age 13. Against the odds, Ntaiya convinced the men of her village to allow her to attend college, and in this talk at TEDxMidAtlantic, she explains how she returned to her village to start its very first all-girls school. (Filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic)

The three sides of corruption: Afra Raymond at TEDxPortofSpain
From pork-laden congressional bills to revolving-door lobbying jobs, corruption is an all-too-familiar aspect of political behavior. Afra Raymond insists on eliminating it. In this passionate talk from TEDxPortofSpain, he lays bare the rampant corruption in his nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and shares important lessons for every concerned global citizen. (Filmed at TEDxPortofSpain)

And here, some of the week’s highlights from the TEDx blog this week:

• TEDxChicuque, the first TEDx event in Mozambique, shines a light on Mozambiquan stories
• Introducing TEDx ice cream
• Say cheese. Portraits from Benjamin Borley’s photo series “The faces of TEDxExeter”
• TEDx speaker running for president in the Czech Republic
• Pixels rule at TEDxRiodelaPlata